Little Goffy

A philosophical debate which has raged for centuries may finally be put to rest, 'Guns or butter? Why not both?'

Just once I would like to experience a decisive finals win with no doubt or fear. The last time was 2000, where I had the pleasure of getting home a little early from work and only missing the first (evenly matched) quarter of Demons vs Kangaroos. We promptly turned on a goal-festival and even had the luxury of not being worried by the Kangroos kicking a bunch in the last quarter, we were that much in control. That's my idea of a fun preliminary final.

Couple of thoughts in no particular order, with selective use of stats where it suits me! In rounds two and three Geelong only managed four goals in each second half. Leads me to think that without Dangerfield providing the inside-50s, score involvements, goal assists and any other offensive stat you care to name as well as clearances, Geelong struggle to sustain scoring power. Mitch Duncan (not Selwood) is Geelong's no.2 for just about everything that Dangerfield is no.1. Tom Hawkins isn't just Geelong's leading goal-kicker with more than double any other, he is also their leading generator of scores for others (goal assists, score involvements) and even their best pressure forward. Stanley/Blicavs are sharing ruck duties approximately 2/1 and Stanley is getting much more involved in general play than he ever has before. Fascinating match up for Gawn/Jackson. Tom Stewart warrants a defensive forward on him to limit his rebound as no other defenders bring the same quality of counter-attack. Isaac Smith has had a grand total of 5 contested possessions after three rounds of football and must be forced. Geelong have an unusual defence with almost all of them being 191cm+ but the tallest being Henderson at 196cm then Kolodjashnij at 193cm. It's a real shame Brown isn't available to stretch them, but Gawn will have a major advantage up there if he isn't being used to plug holes in front of Hawkins. On the flipside, Geelong don't have the kind of mobility in defence to control the Nibbler, Spargo, Viney, Jordan, Pickett swarm who are all in the top 30 for tackles inside 50 this season (along with, surprisingly, McDonald and Fritsch, with Jackson also just outside). Put another way, the Cats are in the very lowest group for inside 50s against them, and will be playing the AFL's top inside-50 team, and they don't have the players to cope well with chaos in their defence and are playing against the best forward pressure team (!!!) in the AFL right now. They will be relying on midfielders running hard to get back, over and over. Old midfielders. Old midfielders who they also need to be doing all the inside-50 work. I say, play on like crazy and be willing to bomb it to the contest if there is no clear option. Just this once. The little guys will kick 10 between them.

Seems unfair when Mark Taylor is still credited with all his games from 1991, which weren't much more than bringing out the drinks and going back to the pavilion. I was just old enough/young enough back then to think that taking a Mark Taylor was a hilarious way to describe pissing behind a tree (out taking a slash outside off stump).

Maybe it is time to dramatically strengthen the second tier of Australian football, instead of imagining that only the official 'AFL' level matters and coming up with yet more hare-brained ideas to fit the mammoth plug in the guinea pig holes?

Too early to tell etc etc but it is looking amazing. Of course you have to consider it in terms of the price paid, so; Tomlinson: Free agent. Langdon: Um, this is complicated. "Ed Langdon is officially a Demon. Fremantle sent Langdon, Pick 26 and a future fourth-round pick to Melbourne in exchange for Pick 22, Pick 79 and a future second-round selection." So that seems to add up to Freo gaining a small upgrade in 2019 (26 to 22), a late pick moved from 2020 to 2019 (future fourth for pick 79) and a future second rounder. Jackson: Pick 3, no shenanigans here except Gold Coast getting a freebie from AFL HQ ? Pickett: Pick 12, with shenanigans. I'm already tired from trying to describe the Langon trade, so let's just say it was pick 12. Rivers: Pick 32, which, just for lols, is the pick we got back from Freo in the Langdon trade. So, you could realistically say the price was picks 3, 12, 22, 32 and a free agent. When you consider the needs of our club, I'm not sure any club has had a more effective draft and trade period since the Geelong double-miracle of 1999 and 2001. But also - MODS perhaps we just merge this with the Jason Taylor thread?

Hopefully he's not taken to the Yze school of contract negotiation - always have your best seasons right before a renewal! But seriously, Salem will be a good value signing because he is the highest quality of player you can get before the runaway pricing of 'star' kicks in. Essential for any serious team.

Pretty sure this is an error in the Telstra Tracker system - clearly their devices can't record greater than 100kms/hr speeds so Melksham has been severely shortchanged.

Wow, how slow was Mitchell then? When we play Hawthorn Jones should tag him for the speed advantage.

May and Lever will be salivating at how slowly Geelong are moving the ball. If we keep the defensive running effort up, harassing the ball carriers and stay reasonably well organised, it'll be an intercept marking party. They are in real trouble without Dangerfield to break things up and create attacks. I'm quietly hoping Petracca puts on a show to make them really feel how much they are missing that attacking power. Oops, and that's Higgins gone, so they are even thinner for the inside-50 deliverers.

The trade was a wise on based on what was known and the risks and needs involved at the time. Salem has steadily developed into what looks to now be a first rate player. Dyson had a burst there where he looked like he was going to be outstanding, but for unknown reasons that faded away. Right trade at the time, and the eventual results have turned out okay. Might be time to put this one to bed.

Well, I tipped us for the premiership in the season predictions so at this stage I can feel a little smug. At the same time, I think we're still well below that level and there will be a few stumbles to come before we really click later in the season and go berserk. Just makes getting the three 'should win' games done properly all the more important. As my brother pointed out; "That's three games in a row that traditionally Melbourne would have screwed up."

I'm pretty dirty on Melksham because I feel like he let us down badly last year. Certainly there's no current reason to believe that he would come in and be better than Jones. Must prove he's got it together again at VFL level before I would trust him. Tom McDonald I've mentioned elsewhere that I would keep him because even as a forward having a bad day he kept working and keep the forward pressure on which may have done a lot to restrict GWS counter-attacks. Edit: I checked some numbers and even McDonald's bad day was better than most of what Melksham served up last year. Don't have a strong opinion other than that. There's a few touch and go - do you give the kid Sparrow another run because he kept doing team things and working hard? Does Jetta have a match-up against Geelong? Side note: Cameron Bruce was injured at the first bounce of round 4 2005 by Brent Guerra driving his shoulder into the ground. The game was against St Kilda but Guerra himself transferred to Hawthorn the next season so we would all have memories of booing him for eight years in a Hawks jumper. Confusion resolved.

Bit of a bump but I just wanted an appropriate place to note; I really, really liked Luke Jackson's game against GWS yesterday. What I found most interesting and pleasing was that after starting the season with a whole lot of moments that were 'almost amazing' Jackson had a very different game in Canberra. I kept seeing him just doing basic things, being involved, making a contribution in small ways. Calmer play. Much less spectacular but much better football and if he can settle those basics into his game it will take a lot of mental pressure off him and hopefully in future allow him to be both reliable and spectacular. I swear every champion player who has ever opened their mouth and made a sound has at some point said 'do the basics well'. If Luke Jackson is listening to that, then we've got ourselves a winner.

The last time we had a coach with a positive win-loss balance was Neale Daniher in 2006 (dropped to 48.5% in 2007). Goodwin currently on 43/43 home and away win/loss and 2/1 in finals. 51%, baby! Fifty-one per cent! Wooooo!

I'm just going to contribute a quick observation on Tom McDonald. At the end of the game, with the camera lingering on him for what seemed like eternity, he looked seriously unhappy with his effort. That made perfect sense after the number of times he just didn't get it right tonight. BUT Many have cited that in the last couple of years we have been seriously deficient for tackles inside 50 and it was a key reason we we so keen on Pickett. Tom McDonald is the current AFL leader for tackles inside 50 after picking up 4 tonight. He made a contribution tonight even if he had a bad game. Most importantly he didn't drop his head and he kept working and working. You don't drop a player for one bad game when their attitude is still intact and team-first. Especially when they've shown some signs of regaining their better form in the previous couple of weeks.

6 Gawn 5 Pickett 4 Lever (Was given huge responsibility to hold a position that was constantly exposed, allowing others to be free) 3 Viney 2 Langdon 1 Brayshaw (tie break with several others was the fact he is beginning to show promise in his wider role)

Last week I noticed every time anyone kicked a goal, Nibbler was right there with them to celebrate, so who celebrates with Nibbler when he kicks a goal? :D

Thanks for that, and that's some respectable numbers too.

If you trawl through the stats he is about mid-rank among our best 22 at the moment, with some better and some below average. That roughly matches the impression I've had from the games, too. Would be silly to say he is starring but he has been a solid contributor in a team which very much needed solid contributors to fill our a somewhat brittle game-day sheet. Touch wood, tap that shiny nogg'n, and may 2021 continue to be a proudly workmanlike season from the veteran. And whatever else happens he'll always be better looking that his brother.

Just terrible organisation. How anyone is getting paid to make such a mess of pretty simple content is beyond understanding.

We really should target a recruit to do that! ?? (just having a laugh) But seriously, yes, please, can someone properly get a hold of it for us soon. That's where the real fun smashings start.

It goes waaaaay back, actually. It's almost as uncanny as Melbourne disproportionately playing sides with new coaches. We outright broke the will of a few teams back in the 2004-2006 run. Very strange stuff - we would play teams which were in the eight when they were our opponents but then by the end of the H/A season they wouldn't count as beating a top-8 opponent when everyone was prognosticating about finals. Still... St Kilda... this is wildly bad. Maybe a few players read the Rod Owen article pre-game and wondered exactly what all last week's proud culture talk was really worth?

On their list, by draft year with place taken in brackets: 2020 - Campbell (5), Gulden (32) 2018 - Blakey (10) 2015 - Mills (3) 2014 - Heeney (18 - different bidding rules, was bid for at 2 - by us!). Also Hiscox and Foote with late selections. In effect, they've had three additional top-5 selections courtesy of the academy, as well as pick 10 and 32. I guess to consider the impact that has on a club you can just imagine what it would do for the fortunes of a club on the mid ladder range to add pick 2, 3, 5, 10, and 32 to a single draft. Yes, they gave up selections to get them but it is nothing in the same field. I wonder if any other club has had more selections inside the top 5 in that time?

That was compelling reading, and I don't normally engage with in-depth personal stories of tragedy so much. I don't know if there was any direct connection but the comments about the all too brief flicker of optimism at Melbourne led me to do some remembering. For what it is worth as a reminder that help does actually help, and maybe if anyone feels like making a donation, too - https://www.reach.org.au/